Connections
by Stunt Muppet
Summary: Optimus Prime and Elita One aren't who they used to be. Pre-series, Optimus/Elita Orion/Ariel .


A/N: Written for the LiveJournal Spring Kinkfest, with the prompt "Transformers (G1), Elita One/Optimus Prime: doing maintenance on each other, washing (no sticky) – My beloved equal." Takes place pre-G1 cartoon, in the early days of the war. (Which, incidentally, is why I felt comfortable making them a bit more angsty than they are in canon - by the time we see them they've had nine million years to get over it so...yeah.)

* * *

She was so different, now.

(But then, so was he.)

Even now there were still gaps in his memories; the few decacycles before his reconstruction were a half-wired network with most of the crucial connections missing. He remembered images, sometimes sounds, but crucial details – things he hated not knowing, like who rebuilt him – might be irretrievable.

But before then his memory track was mostly intact, and he could remember who she used to be.

It was nothing unusual – major reconstructions and rewirings like this generally caused changes in personality – and anyway Ariel had always been the more sensible out of all of them; that hadn't changed. She was just more serious now. More reserved. More sure. And there was a boldness to Elita he admired, an unshakable courage that had probably always been there and was only now, in the crucible of combat, emerging.

But she used to smile so much more often before.

(Of course, they didn't have much reason to these days.)

She'd remained at his side as the war began, because back then she was the only one like him, her and Ultra Magnus. But as the battles drew on he wondered why. The spontaneity and comfort between them was gone, and when they spoke it was only of strategy, or of tactics, or of leadership disputes.

Even when she was right next to him, he missed her.

And it was that that led him to her quarters in base camp as night fell, nominally to check on her and ensure that she hadn't sustained too much damage but in truth hoping to speak to her: about the city they used to call home, about the squad she was hoping to train and lead, about anything that didn't, in the end, come back to war.

When he opened her door she acknowledged him briefly, not surprised by his presence, but soon returned her attention to the exposed circuitry on her arm. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"I'm all right," she replied, with a small smile, probably to reassure him. "It's nothing I can't repair on my own." Despite that her injuries looked worse now that they were back at base and under better light than they had on the battlefield; the tears in her plating weren't too severe but he hadn't noticed all the dents and gouges that didn't pierce the shell, or the slight lag when she moved, or how though she'd cleaned herself off as best she could she was still stained, in places, with oil and ash.

"Are you sure you don't want to see a medic?" She hadn't listened to him much even when they were dockworkers, pointedly doing whatever it was she had made up her mind to do; he hadn't expected that to change even if he was, technically, her commanding officer, and she hadn't disappointed him. But at times her independence worried him. She'd left one battle a few quartices ago with her front axle almost snapped in two, and she hadn't even said anything until she skidded off the road on the way back to base. Sustaining an injury like that in the heat of a fight could easily have killed her, and he'd told her so, and she acted like it simply hadn't occurred to her to alert him to her condition. Besides, she'd insisted, she could fight on a broken axle. No sense in leaving the fight when they still needed her.

"No, Optimus," she said, gently insistent. "It's nothing serious. Basic maintenance is all it'll take. There are other bots who need a medic far more than me."

"Maybe, but that doesn't mean you don't need attention." He laid a hand on the shoulder she was repairing. "At least let me take care of it."

She paused, looking sideways at him. He wasn't sure what had prompted him to ask, and he considered dismissing the suggestion and leaving her to her own thoughts. But it gave him a reason to stay with her without just standing here waiting for a conversation to start.

His gaze wandered from her shoulders to her unbowed back to the concavities of her waist, so much strength in such a streamlined form. Too much strength to let herself be protected or sheltered, no matter how much he might want to keep her safe from the long war ahead. But he could at least take care of her.

"Elita," he repeated, quietly.

After another moment's consideration she lay her hand on his, agreeing without a word.

He started with the wiring on her arm, working as gently as he could in reconnecting the few that had come loose. But she was rigid with strain, the tension in her body sending wayward sparks through her wires and weakening the new connections before he could stabilize them, making her flinch under his touch.

That explained the stiffness in her motions, then. Being on alert for so long had started to make her lock up. Two ways he could fix that: he could open up every joint, loosen the bolts and hinges and re-test them until they were back at optimum resistance, or...

A quick examination turned up the familiar keyhole panel at the back of her neck, right at the top of the spinal strut. A point connected, if remotely, to every other joint in her body.

The tips of his fingers brushed the seams of the panel; she flinched again - no, more like she started - and Optimus thought he heard a momentary rev in her engine. She tipped her head forward, sensing his intentions, and slid the panel back to reveal her port. Was she smiling?

He was surprised at her willingness, that he hadn't even had to ask. Just enough stimulation through the spinal mechanism was good for loosing locked joints quickly, without the intricate repairs she'd need otherwise, but - well, the neck port had other uses, uses they'd explored back before their reconstruction. Uses that were difficult to close from his mind.

Before he could stop himself he wondered if Elita would react the way Ariel did, if he was to try it. If she'd twist and steady herself against him and demand more, always more.

Which was not something he should be wondering right now, he thought, hastily closing the thought. This was only repair work, no matter how much he might want to see if that part of who she was lay hidden inside her new chassis. In search of a suitable new topic of thought he searched through her toolkit for a discharge cable, something to provide and receive the needed energy to loosen her.

"You're damaged?" she asked, turning her eyes to the toolkit and then to him.

"Not seriously. Why?"

"You're not using your own cables."

They stared at each other for a long, awkward nanoklik. He'd wanted to be close to her, to find her again in the bot she'd become, but she was still so _different_ - tending to her was one thing, but he couldn't just use her ports, not even to fix her, not when he was still so unsure.

"It's all right, Optimus, it's not as if we've never..." But she stopped before she finished her sentence. While he was still searching for a way to explain himself, she seemed to understand his doubts. "Do I make you that uncomfortable?" she asked, and it was the first time he could remember her looking hurt.

"No - that isn't it," he said, more quickly than he should have. She dropped her gaze before he could say anything else.

"What are we going to do when this is over?" she asked, her voice quiet.

"What do you mean?"

"When the war ends. If we win," she added, giving voice to what he never had - the thought that they were outnumbered, that winning a few cities back from the Decepticons only meant a tradeoff of a few more, that in some places the front lines had stabilized and neither side had given nor taken ground in metacycles.

He hadn't really thought about what would happen after. "We'll rebuild Cybertron. Reconstruct the cities, get everyone back to a normal life. The way things were."

"And after that? We were built for war, Optimus. Both of us. What do we do when we have no war to fight?"

He had no answer to give. "Sometimes I don't..." she went on, the calm of her voice faltering for the first time. "Sometimes I don't want this. Any of this." She gestured at her body, the tuned and elegant warrior's body that was not yet her own. "And then sometimes it's as if I was protoformed like this."

Another quiet. "I'm sorry," she said at last, her voice returned to its even tone. She was half-turned away from him, as if embarrassed by her momentary lapse. He lay his hands on her arms, careful to avoid the tear he hadn't yet repaired.

"You have nothing to be sorry for." He retracted his faceplate when he spoke. "You're still you, Elita. At spark, we're still us. We're just...built differently now." It wasn't true and he knew it, but maybe he could persuade himself while trying to persuade her.

"Are we?"

He turned her to face him, and she ran her slender fingers across the sensitive metal on his exposed face, as if searching for traces of Orion Pax in him the way he'd looked for Ariel in her. In some way it was a relief, to know that she doubted and feared as he did, to know that she too was unsure. It meant she hadn't forgotten. It meant that somewhere in her processor there were still Ariel's memories, and Ariel's life, and maybe Ariel's love, and she didn't want to leave them behind.

She was different. So was he. But they were also, in some way, the same.

"I don't know," he said at last. "I don't know how much we've changed." The words cast off a burden he'd kept stored away, and so he kept on repeating them. "I don't know what we'll do after the war. I don't know if we'll be able to go back to a normal life, the way we are now. And I especially don't know if we'll win." He cupped Elita's chin in one hand. "Would you stay with me while we figure that out?"

And like him hearing her worries echoed seemed to offer her a comfort no other reassurance could, and she kissed him, delicately, on the mouth. "I think I could do that," she said, managing a smile once again.

"I'm glad." He traced down the arc of her neck and around her collar, feeling the hum of tightened pneumatics underneath. "Hmm. Still tense?"

She nodded, leaning into his touch, her own hands perched light on his shoulders, seeming grateful to leave the previous topic. Again he remembered the precision and power of her new body, the force contained in her curled, tightened fingers. The new and unknown in her didn't have to be unsettling.

"Would you like me to fix that?"

* * *

Though she was braced against her berth, her back to him and her neck port temptingly bare, he started out as gentle as he had before, exploring her, learning her. Working by touch he found the seams in her chestplate and traced them - slowly, taking his time to commit each gap and join to memory, lingering long enough to make her stir but not to really please her, not yet.

From there his search spread outward - down to her hips pushed hard against his own and her strong, sinuous thighs, up to the arrays on her shoulders that drew a purr from her vocal processor when touched, stroked, kissed. He lingered there, his hands circling the seams on her thighs and his mouth nipping and teasing at her left array, and now and then he'd press just a bit harder against the seam, finding a gap he could work his fingers into and feel the raw, tangled heat of her circuits inside, sending out shocks whenever he touched.

"Aren't - _aah_ - aren't you getting sidetracked?" she panted, and the quiver in that voice made his spark pulse hard. He wanted to unsteady her more, wanted to shake her so deep she couldn't speak at all - just like before, when the moment she finally lost that gentle, sweet demeanor and gripped him hard and screamed for his touch was as satisfying as the moment of overload -

Right. The spinal mechanism. He'd almost forgotten. He fumbled for his power filter cable as he touched her port, traced around it, kissed just beside it, relishing each small, struggling noise she made. He raised the plug up near the port and tapped the two together, establishing a second of connection but not enough.

And then Elita lost patience and reached behind her, plugging him in herself in a hard, swift motion and flooding him with the sudden connection. The heat that poured in from her body was sharp and searing and insistent, drawing him in and pulling him close until he couldn't sever the link, he couldn't even think to.

He steadied himself against the berth and pulsed back, applying the lightest pressure, the smallest charge she might need to trigger release, to the connection. She tensed even more, back arching against his, and through gritted dental plates she hissed "No - not enough - keep going - "

He pushed back again, more and harder this time, and in answer he felt springs and pistons and actuators loose the force they had stored up inside her and send it firing into him, shaking him and revving his engine until it screamed. On the other end of the connection the sudden release of pressure had seized Elita's whole body and he could feel her, shuddering hard against his arms and chest and grinding at him where their bodies met. And her voice was high and fragmented and so loud.

They stopped as soon as the irresistible motion did, fans whirring fast to ease the mounting heat. The transmission across his cable quieted, from pounding to a slow, gentle pulse, warming but not burning.

"You aren't finished," Elita said at last, leaning back to look him in the optics. There was just a touch of irritation in her voice, enough to inform him that she wasn't either.

"No. Feeling better?"

"Much," she murmured, shaking out her shoulders and showing off just how much better she was; contentment and ease drifted through the connection like a thought.

"Good. Hold still." And without disturbing the connection he reached around to her arm, starting again on the rewiring he'd begun when he first came in.

"Can't that wait?" she asked, settling back against him.

"I said I'd repair you," he replied, matter-of-factly, but sending a teasing pulse down the line. "I'd rather finish what I start."

"Hmm. Don't take too long, Optimus."

And he set to work, untangling and reconnecting, learning more of her piece by piece.


End file.
